Of-fucking-course Naraku was some borderlands spider.
Of-fucking-course he had used Onigumo to get into the human realm, then killed him off.
Naraku using Onigumo's dead body like a damn puppeteer almost made Inuyasha almost feel sorry for the guy—almost. Then… when Naraku was done with his human suit, he had discarded Onigumo like a skin and crawled out of the fucking portal, closing it behind him.
In the short moments after Kikyō had hit the ground from the spider's jab, Naraku had already halved the distance between himself and his prey. Sango and Kagura shot explosive reiki-yōki beams at him; the reactions pulsed nearly immediately after they hit the air, sending shockwaves that shook the building. Naraku bellowed in pain, but his pauses were momentary. He was making a beeline for Kikyō, who lay motionless on the ground.
Oh my fuck he is planning on eating her.
Inuyasha's mouth fell agape. Naraku was not bullshitting about the consuming reiki. And he was going to turn Kikyō into his first snack. Fuck that. Inuyasha cracked his claws and got ready to move when a flash of black and silver nearly toppled him over. Kagome.
"Don't you dare!" Kagome's growl filled the room. She threw herself in front of Kikyō before Inuyasha could do anything to stop her, facing down the spider. "You want to eat mikos, you bottom-dwelling foot fungus? Well… you don't get her." Kagome snapped her fingers and flared her reiki. "Looks like you're stuck with me, you piece of restewed swamp gas… but be warned. I cause indigestion!"
Oh fucking fuck, Kagome was offering herself.
Inuyasha tried to scream, tried to do something. But every muscle had seized from the realization of what she was about to do. He couldn't get to her, couldn't stop her stupidity. All he could do was watch as his soulmate disappeared down the maw of the great spider.
"Kagome!" Inuyasha screamed; his paralysis snapped the moment he watched Kagome disappear.
He was going to rip the fucking spider apart with his bare hands if that was what it took. Inuyasha lunged at Naraku, slashing at his eyes and causing the spider to shriek in pain. But Inuyasha did not relent. Naraku had Kagome and he would eviscerate him to get her back. Streams of red gushed past him and he heard echoes of shouts to get out of the way. But Inuyasha did not listen. All that mattered was getting to Kagome. Everything else be damned.
They all pressed and Naraku retreated, but there was no portal for him to retreat into, and there was no portal to absorb the reiki/yōki explosions. Every time Naraku took a swing, the structure vibrated under the strain. Every time their beams made a boom, the building shook.
CPW Towers was going to come down if they kept fighting. But Inuyasha didn't care. His claws were bleeding, but he was making dents in the spider's armor. And his blood he could turn into blades, which he threw at Naraku, slicing through the compound eyes of the spider.
He would get his soulmate back.
He would get his soulmate back.
"Inuyasha, we need to get hold back before this building collapses!" Sango's voice cut through his rage, but only just. Because even as she said it, Naraku was scurrying away.
"Inuyasha!" Kagura's turn as Inuyasha pursued, putting a few more slashes into the spider's hairy legs. "She… Kagome took the portal pack with her!"
That stopped him, just long enough for the clamorous shatter of glass to alert them all that Naraku had escaped, breaking through the window on the 20th floor of CPW towers, and jumping.
There on the floor sat an aura blaster, green bedazzled sequins spelling out the name Kagome. Inuyasha's stomach turned to ice as his blood turned to fire.
He knew what his stupid soulmate was going to do.
And he would move heaven and earth to get to her before she could.
"Kikyō is okay. She's breathing," Sango shouted. "Go after him, Inuyasha."
"Take these." Kagura tossed Inuyasha a dozen of her grenades from her kneeling position next to Kikyō. They nodded solemnly at each other, then Inuyasha took off with all the speed that his half-demon self could muster. He pressed his charm and turned off his disguise, letting his yōki swirl as angrily around him as it ever had, and jumped out the window, landing on his feet 20 floors below before taking off once more.
Naraku had his soulmate.
He would get his soulmate back.
Before Kagome was absorbed into the filthy body of the spider.
Before Kagome could activate the portal device.
Before Kagome could set off the yōki and reiki grenades that would send Naraku back to hell.
Inuyasha had never used his demon speed in the human world before. He too had never just let his yōki fully unleash, but he did both without hesitation. His senses were in hyperdrive, telling him that there were approximately one hundred pathetic noodle demons still in the city (god help them if one of those got in his way), and he could feel the spider run. Its yōki was pitching, as if the beast itself was limping, as if some of Inuyasha's slashes had hit true.
He would slice the spider open himself and free her, even if he needed to use every blade of blood his demon body could supply, even if he dropped dead from the effort. His life was forfeit, after all. This was his fucking fault! He was the one who wanted to get home so damn badly he listened to Onigumo. He was the one who looked the other way when portals did start to open, and weird shit poured out. He was at fault for keeping his secret, because even after he met Kagome for the first time, he didn't tell her who he really was. And when Onigumo suggested harming the women, he didn't cut him down and bury him in a place no one would go looking at the mere mention of it. Naraku was Inuyasha's fault, and Naraku was Inuyasha's responsibility. And Naraku had taken Kagome.
Time with Kagome made up for ten years alone on the human side. Days by her side, soothed by her scent, delighted by her teasing while they prepared for armageddon, enraptured by time spent in Kagome's bed finding new ways to bring each other to new planes of existence. Kagome loved his sense of humor and yelled at him when he overdid it. She rubbed his ears until he purred and snuggled into him to sleep. At night when he was at his most self-hating, she would whisper to him that he was just trying to get home, and that she was utterly grateful that he finally found his way to her.
He told her stories of the demon realm, of his family, of why being only half always grated on him, and how he survived in New York. She told him about her secret reiki games with Kikyō in college, and how her dad had died young. She couldn't wait to introduce him to Mama and to her brother, and was unafraid of letting them see the real him. On his human night, she held him closer than normal, then teased him about how lucky she was to have two hot men who were the same boyfriend (he was her boyfriend!), and promised that she would protect him with her life too.
Now here he fucking was, trying not to go out of his mind that Kagome had kept her promise to protect him. Had sacrificed her life to save him, when everything was his fucking fault. When he was not worth saving. No. He wouldn't let her. Naraku would never take his Kagome. Not as long as he still had an ounce of strength left in his body, and at the moment, he had megatons.
Inuyasha sensed that he was closing in on Naraku now: not much farther to go. His muscles were burning, but the fire in his blood, the fire that howled to protect his soulmate, burned far brighter.
"I'm comin' for you Kagome," Inuyasha vowed, "and I'm coming for you, Naraku."
When he saw the spider, currently stampeding through Central Park (thank fuck there was a park in the middle of the city), Inuyasha sensed her. Kagome. A little twinkle of reiki somewhere in the black yōki of the beast. The noodle demons were starting to circle around Naraku, providing cover as military vehicles went rushing toward him.
"Reiki bomb it is, you motherfuckers," Inuyasha snarled, and grabbed one of the grenades that Kagura had given him: one charged with Kikyō's reiki. He lobbed it into the vortex of beast-headed noodles, watching as the explosion vaporized most of them, spattering their remains onto the park like demonic rain.
The blast provided enough distraction and mayhem that Inuyasha also closed the distance between himself and Naraku. Now, there was no more running. Naraku would not be able to escape.
"Turn and fight, you motherfucker!" Inuyasha screamed, sending a reiki blast from his pack out to lasso the spider's legs. Naraku tripped and stumbled, sending a tremor through the city. "You fucking coward!"
Inuyasha launched himself over the enormous body, landing gingerly on the ground, now face-to-face with Naraku's glowing red eyes.
"You care so much about this pathetic realm," Naraku rasped in Latin. "Join me, and we can conquer our home!"
Naraku tried to scuttle off to the left, but Inuyasha leapt in the way, letting out a lash of yōki from his pack. Naraku recoiled, then snarled.
"You should never have left the borderlands, you pathetic excuse for a demon." Inuyasha could feel his yōki surge to the surface. He couldn't let it, not now, not when he had to think. How was he going to get to Kagome? "There's a reason you were stuck there. It was because you were weak and stupid."
Naraku snarled deeper at Inuyasha's taunt. When he gnashed his teeth, Inuyasha stared him down and tried desperately to come up with something that he could do to destroy Naraku before he absorbed Kagome. Before Kagome had the chance to do the utterly stupid thing that she had planned to do.
But then something changed. Something was not right. Naraku's yōki signature was fading as they dueled, as if… as if… Naraku was being sucked away somewhere from the inside out.
Kagome.
Kagome had activated the portal from inside of Naraku.
Inuyasha needed to get to her as fast as he could. He didn't have fucking time for these games. He couldn't spar, not when he was not completely sure what would happen when the portal was big enough to swallow Naraku entirely.
He had an idea. An utterly stupid idea, Kagome's idea.
He needed to make Naraku howl one more time.
"You're running from a fight with a half-demon." Inuyasha needed to keep his panic under control, he needed to taunt at that moment. "What a disgrace you must be to your family…"
"I am not a disgrace!" There it was. Apparently even murderous spiders had daddy issues. When Naraku opened his mouth to continue to scream, Inuyasha dove in, squirming with all his might past the poison pincers , down Naraku's gullet, forcing the spider to swallow or choke, and finally down into the massive beast's stomach.
He could feel her there, in the darkness of Naraku's digestive system. She was floating in a light pink ball, a barrier made out of her reiki; he hadn't been aware that Kagome could make barriers like that. Inuyasha ignored the burn of the stomach acid on his skin and swam toward it, unsurprised to see, there through the pink pearlescent sphere, the little sparking ring of a portal expanding outward.
Kagome, you idiot. Inuyasha smiled; he had made it to her in time.
Pain didn't matter, and his yōki could protect him from the worst of the burn.
So he swam on, until finally, he was face to face with the ball that housed his soulmate.
He passed through Kagome's barrier as if walking through a warm waterfall.
"Inu—yasha?" Kagome looked exhausted. She was sitting on the bottom of Naraku's stomach, her fingers touching lightly to make a triangle, holding up the spell. The metallic portal device was purring inches in front of her.
Inuyasha crossed to her immediately, settling himself around her, pulling her onto his lap.
"I'm here," he whispered. "You're an idiot."
"Don't distract me," Kagome's voice strained as she said it. "If I stop then… this…"
"Wouldn't dream of it," Inuyasha purred; he extended his yōki to meet Kagome's reiki, letting them intertwine, reinforcing the barrier, and taking a bit of the weight off her shoulders. "You're doin' amazing, Kagome…"
"Is… is the portal—?" she stuttered.
"Gettin' bigger every moment." Inuyasha said, inhaling her cherry blossom and vanilla scent. "At this rate, it'll make it outta Naraku's body soon…"
Kagome's voice had relaxed a bit from Inuyasha's help. He could feel Naraku's yōki trying to punch its way into the barrier, but it was staying strong. Fuck; Kagome was strong. And the electric white ring that surrounded deep black had nearly consumed the interior of Naraku's body. Consuming them, too.
"How was it?" Kagome whispered. "Being transported?"
The tug and the pain. Inuyasha still remembered them as if they happened yesterday. But Kagome needed to concentrate, so… for now, a half-truth would have to do.
"There's a tug, and a little pain," Inuyasha said, pulling Kagome as close to him as was humanly possible. "Then you're in a new world."
"That… doesn't sound so bad." Kagome leaned back into Inuyasha, though her arms were still taut; the reiki that ran through her fingers was still sustaining the barrier.
"We will run through the woodlands," Inuyasha whispered, "and dance under the moon. I'll show you to my favorite tree, and you and my mom can talk about Ohio. And no one fucks with my dad, so… it doesn't even matter where we land."
"Are there more… Narakus?" Kagome trembled in Inuyasha's arms.
"I dunno," Inuyasha answered honestly. He tried to remember what his dad and Hosenki talked about the one or two times he was close enough to overhear about the patrols… "I don't think so."
"Well then," Kagome's voice had turned resolute, "let's see if we can't make sure that there are zero Narakus, on either side of the portal." Then she let out a dry laugh. "You're an idiot for coming after me, you know that?"
Leave it to his soulmate to tease him while they were in the stomach of an interdimensional spider demon.
"Because I was not gonna let you take all the good hero's deaths for yourself?" Inuyasha chuckled back. "Selfish…" Inuyasha whispered the last part, "especially when this is all my fault."
"If I hear you say that one more time, Inuyasha Taisho, I am going to kick your ass in… I guess Valhalla," Kagome retorted. "You were desperate, and they took advantage. Now though, we have a chance to end this."
Inuyasha could smell the tears, because they both knew that, even as they teased, there was a price for what was coming next. He wished he could think of a way to get Kagome out, get her to safety as he ended things, but their yōki and reiki were so intertangled in the barrier that… there was no way to separate it. They would die together or fail together.
"Portal has probably gotten bigger than Naraku now if you want to… end this," Inuyasha commented, using his fingers to wipe the tears that had started breaking from Kagome's eyes.
"Can we give it a little bit more time?" Kagome begged. "You're here. So I can hold this barrier for a bit longer. He's not going to be able to get to the device, even if he punctured his own stomach to get to it."
"Of course," Inuyasha sighed, his head now entirely buried in Kagome's hair. "Do you think that Kikyō and the others will make sure that we're not forgotten?"
"Definitely," Kagome said. "The conspiracy theory tabloid writer and her half-demon soulmate save New York from a rampaging spider who was planning on eating all the spiritual people. Damn, that is such a good headline. Mushin would have given me a bonus for coming up with that one!"
"Shhh." Inuyasha could feel tears coming to his eyes now, too. He didn't want for his life to be over. Not now, not when he'd just found Kagome, who could turn being stuck in the stomach of a demon and about to die into something that could make him laugh. Who could… make him feel like he wasn't a horrible person for trusting Onigumo and trying to get home…
"I love you." Inuyasha didn't care if it was too early. He didn't care if they were dying in a few minutes, and fuck, if they miraculously survived, well he sure as shit would make sure to keep saying those words to her every damn day of the rest of their lives.
"I love you, too." Kagome's answer was what spurred the tears.
"What fucking luck, huh?" Inuyasha sniffled, but only a little bit. Their barrier was going nowhere. "We finally meet each other, after ten—"
"Ten years later than we should have." Kagome let out a fatalistic laugh; an attempt to avoid breaking down and crying.
"But you gave me the best fuckin' month of my life," Inuyasha said. "Thank you for… for forgivin' me… and invitin' me into your life."
Kagome's sob answered for her.
Best fucking month of both their lives.
A reverberating howl forced them back into their present. Apparently Naraku had now finally become aware of Kagome's master plan. Inuyasha too could feel the tug, and he could feel the burn of the portal. They were now inside of it, probably with Naraku.
It was time.
Inuyasha pivoted himself around Kagome, the portal device between them (the thing ran so smoothly that Inuyasha wished Kagura could have seen it). They were facing each other now. Inuyasha unhooked one of the yōki grenades: his yōki.
"You said that the portal hurt a little," Kagome grimaced, but she started to unhook the grenades on her belt as well. "I think we need to be fast."
Inuyasha nodded, and he found two more yōki grenades, matching them to Kagome's reiki ones.
"Three and three… I'll hold them and you pull the pins," Inuyasha said, taking all of them into his hand. "You ready?"
"No," Kagome murmured, "but that's okay. I'm going to do it anyway." She whipped her hair back with a wink. "Now let's explode this motherfuckin' spider."
"I love you Kagome," Inuyasha declared. He had to say it one more time.
"I love you too, Inuyasha."
Kagome pulled all the pins at the same time, and Inuyasha tossed them outside, beyond their barrier. He then pulled Kagome in for one last final hug, one last final kiss, before everything disappeared into a flash of pink and red.